Liding Wang V00951534
Kexin Li V00923347
Yufei Li V00985650
Zewen Ding V00957416
Introduction
It has been almost two years since COVID-19 began to spread in late 2019. People are slowly adapting to living with COVID-19 without realizing it. At the same time, our lives have changed a lot because of the emergence of COVID-19, which has had a lot of impact on our daily life. For example, since COVID-19, we are required to wear masks when entering public places, international students need to complete a series of examinations and applications before entering Canada and Many restaurants that were usually full before COVID-19 are now unavailable eat-in or even closed. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought us a lot of inconvenience but also promoted the development of many industries. For example PLN is growing rapidly due to COVID-19, we can only get in touch with others through some software, like Zoom. So we decided to take “The Life Impact of COVID-19” as the theme for our final project.
Entertainment Business
Because of the spread of the epidemic, people can only wear masks when they go out, and they cannot go to closed places to play or travel far away. This has a great impact on the entertainment in our lives. For example, entertainment includes tourism, and tourism is one of the economies most affected by the epidemic! Before COVID-19, the tourism industry accounted for 10% of global GDP, but now it has fallen sharply. In the beginning, the country blocked the city and prevented us from getting out. Now that the epidemic has eased a little, going out to play becomes dangerous and easy to be infected with the virus. At the same time, going out and coming back needs to be isolated and more time-consuming, and everyone is reluctant to travel. Just like Canada due to the impact of the epidemic, the number of people coming to Canada from abroad in March 2020 fell by 54.2% compared to the number of people in February, and the hotel occupancy rate was also lower than 20% (Tam, 2021). This has had a huge impact on Canadian tourism. Lower economic development. At the same time, the epidemic has left everyone trapped at home, and everyone can only watch digital media at home, such as video-on-demand, online video, and electronic entertainment. This has allowed online digital entertainment revenue to grow to 31%, and online video users have increased by 26% compared to the number before the epidemic（Adgate, 2021）. On the contrary, physical entertainment began to decrease, movie theaters closed, and Disney and Universal Studios ceased to operate. Even the bars and parties that people like can’t be held. For example, when the epidemic broke out last year, a friend of mine had his birthday, and we could not get together to celebrate her birthday. Because there is no entertainment place can bring so many people together, and at the same time, it is more dangerous to get together if you don’t know who everyone has contact with. Statistics show that the total digital entertainment in 2020 is only 7 billion US dollars, not as good as half of 2016 revenue（Adgate, 2021）. This also means that COVID-19 has changed the entertainment in our lives, changed our entertainment methods, and reduced economic income.
Restaurant & Hotel Business
With the COVID-19 pandemic that people need to keep social distance and travel restrictions, also most governments of all countries promulgate the stay-at-home orders, businesses in the restaurant and hospitality industry are now feeling severe and unprecedented effects. As a result, the restaurant industry has suffered more sales problems and job losses than any other industry in the country. According to a survey in the United States, 17% of restaurants in the United States, about 110,000 restaurants have closed permanently since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with 10,000 closing in the last three months (Hartmans, 2020). Hotels and restaurants account for a large part of the world economy, and the emergence of COVID-19 has dealt a big blow to this part of the industry. Due to the control of the epidemic, many people cannot go out to eat in restaurants, and both small restaurants and hotels have been forced to close. Most full-service restaurants are operating at a small part, because of government mandates and the owner wants to keep their business afloat. As a result, Canada’s Real gross domestic product (GDP) of food services and drinking places fell 39.5% in March 2020 and by another 40.8% in April 2020 as many of these businesses either closed completely or operated at a greatly reduced capacity, providing take-out or delivery services exclusively. In fact, more than half (56%) of food service and drinking place operators reported being closed at some point last April, while 41% reported being closed for the entire month. (Sood, 2021). Because of the decrease in revenue and other aspects, those restaurants that are still open, but have made adjustments, and the best way to deal with trouble is to fire and pay some employees. The National Restaurant Association said in October the pandemic-induced economic crisis had reduced restaurant staffing by 2 million jobs, a decline of 16%, from pre-COVID-19 levels (Ruggless. 2021). And many of those changes will persist after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. Restaurants and hotels have learned their lesson and will turn to preventive measures. The industry will emerge from the pandemic as a completely different kind of business, with the reopening of restaurants and hotels the most obvious change being the new pressures on health and safety. During the pandemic, in some areas, governments mandated additional health measures. Food service and drinking establishments have turned to contactless delivery and take-out, and invested to expand their online sales capabilities, amid restrictions on face-to-face dining and consumers’ reluctance to eat in. This has become a new way of doing business, and the emergence of such a way to improve the economic recovery of the hotel and restaurant industry. Over half (50.7%) of food services and drinking places reported they were likely or very likely to permanently adopt contactless delivery or pickup options. Over one-quarter (27.5%) of food services and drinking places have an online sales platform or plans to implement one. Notably, in 2020 nearly one-fifth (19.4%) of food services and drinking places made 30% or more of their total sales online, more than double the proportion that did in 2019 (9.1%) (Sood, 2021). The emergence of COVID-19 has dealt a huge economic blow to the hotel and restaurant industry, but it has also changed the business model. The new business model will help the industry recover economically under the condition of ensuring safety.
Covid, PLN and Life
What is PLNs?
The PLN stands for Personal Learning Networks. It allows people to share knowledge and interact with each other.
Covid-19 and PLNs
Before Covid 19, some PLNs are already in use and popular such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, many people would use those platforms as a CoP, which stands for Communities of Practice. CoP divided people with the same professional field into groups, which also limited individuals’ views. Since many businesses shut down because of the Covid-19, many people are seeking jobs that allow them to work from home. At this step, they may need to learn new skills and meet new people who are in different professional fields. Thus, their PLNs became more and more important.
Zoom
Unlike many other businesses that met a hard time because of the epidemic, Zoom Meeting developed rapidly. Many people, including me, may not notice that Zoom is actually “founded in 2011 and launched in 2013” (Arif, 2021). Zoom indeed changes our lives, especially the way of learning and accepting new information.
It is common that professors teach students in classes. Thus, most interaction and learning appear in the colleges and universities. At the end of 2019, schools began shutting down and by the summer of 2020 nearly all of the universities decided to open online lectures through Zoom or Microsoft Teams. These platforms allow students to expand their PLNs since they can directly communicate and exchange their web pages via chat. In short, Covid-19 indirectly changed our ways of learning and contact with people.
Youtube
Other than Zoom, Youtube is another digital platform that I would like to mention since it can be seen as a substitution for travelling. As Liding mentions, Covid has had a huge impact on the entertainment business. Many flights were cancelled and travelling is not recommended. The best solution that I can think of is watching travelling videos on Youtube instead of directly flying to those countries. One of the best things on Youtube is individuals can sometimes find some informative information in the comments (may from people of different countries, races and careers). In other words, audiences do not only watch the beautiful view but also may get informed by some comments, similar to hearing things from tour guides. Travelling is one of the entertainment forms.
More importantly, there are many studying channels on Youtube. I already used Youtube for studying in my high school. At that time, the Youtubers could be a professional teacher’s avocation. Some students prefer those videos on Youtube and they will also comment directly if they have questions. They will usually get answers from others or the Youtuber. Now because of Covid, many of my professors would also use Youtube as a teaching tool if they do not want to use Zoom. It is convenient for both sides. If students have questions, instead of emailing professors, they can leave a comment down below.
Conclusion
In conclusion we have to say that COVID-19 has brought us a lot of inconvenience and negative effects. Its influence on our life is far beyond what has been mentioned in the article. For example, since the spread of COVID-19, everyone’s heart is in panic, which has caused a very serious negative impact on the whole society, and the treatment of COVID-19 patients has brought a lot of economic impact to the government and the country. However, as mentioned in the article, the COVID-19 epidemic also has a good impact on some emerging industries. During the epidemic, many schools were using live streaming software to conduct online teaching, which is rare in the past, and also promotes the development of electronic technology. Through the current situation, I think we have passed the worst phase of COVID-19, so I believe that everything will be better in the future.
References
Adgate, B., 2021. The Impact COVID-19 Had On The Entertainment Industry In 2020. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brada dgate/2021/04/13/ the-impact-covid-19-had-on-the-entertainment-industry-in-2020/?sh=dc2d7a5250f0
Arif, G. (Feburary 21, 2021). In The Post Covid-19 World, Zoom Is Here To Stay. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/raufarif/2021/02/26/in-the-post-covid-19-world-zoom-is-here-to-stay/?sh=231a48cb55b5
Gutierrez, K. (2016, June 21). What are personal learning networks? Shift eLearning. Retrieved September 17. from https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/personal-learning-networks
Hartmans, A. (2020, December 7). Roughly 17% of US restaurants have permanently shut down since the start of the pandemic as industry leaders warn of an ‘unprecedented economic decline’. Business Insider. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://www.businessinsider.com/thousands-us-restaurants-closed-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-12.
Ruggless, R. (2021, March 15). One year in, covid-19 pandemic continues to Impact Independent Restaurants. Restaurant Hospitality. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://www.restaurant-hospitality.com/operations/one-year-covid-19-pandemic-continues-impact-independent-restaurants.
Sood, S. (2021, March 18). Different industries have been impacted in various ways by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Food Services and drinking places subsector was one of the hardest hit by public-safety measures. this paper presents a portrait of the pandemic’s impact on food services and drinking places in 2020 and the expectations of these businesses moving forward. it involves an examination of the data produced by the Canadian Survey on business conditions. Impact of COVID-19 on food services and drinking places, first quarter of 2021. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://www150.stat can.gc.ca/n1/pu b/45-28-000 1/2021001/ article/ 000 0-eng.htm.
Tam, S. et al., 2021. Impact of COVID-19 on the tourism sector, second quarter of 2021. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2021001/article/00023-eng.htm
